The post looks good, but by way of amends and to educate myself a bit better I did some testing on my 2000 Taurus 3.0 OHV wagon. The Motorcraft battery is about a year old and load tested by my dealer in December 2007 as perfect. The car had not run since noon on 8 Jan 2008 (temp +8C) and at 8:35am on 9 Jan 2008 (still +8C) I tested the battery voltage at 12.37 volts. I then took the specific gravity reading of the 6 cells and each was full of electrolyte and the reading was over 1.3 on each cell and on the top side of "good". The battery is fully charged and therefore the voltage is representative of a situation where it has been "off-charge" for many hours.
Next to the electrical drain. I opened the drivers door and left it open, after 10 minutes the lights went out. I proceeded to remove the battery neg cable and make a copper wire to fit on the battery terminal to hold the red (+) lead of my digital multi-tester. I set the digital meter on the 10Amp setting for the leads and the dial. I attached the black (-) lead to the battery cable clamp and tightened it to securely hold (ammeter setting does not differentiate + and - so any connection should be ok). The system woke up with a slight (very small white spark and little click) spark and the interior lights turned on and the meter registered 2.2 amps draw. After 10 minutes the lights went out and the draw was 1.8 amps and after 15 minutes the draw dropped to 0.240 amps (240 milleamps), after 30 minutes the draw dropped to 0.174 amps, after 32 minutes the draw dropped to 0.040 amps (40 milleamps), after 35 minutes the draw dropped to 0.020 amps and every 8 seconds spiked to .040 amps momentarily. The continuing draw of 20 milleamps with a momentary spike to 40 milleamps every 8 seconds untill 60 minutes when I terminated the test. The "theft" light blinked every 3 seconds.
Now with the driver's door open and all systems asleep the appropriate fuses can be removed to check the draw. I do not know the correct sequence, but suspect that you cannot re-connect the fuse without risking waking-up the PCM since there is a large network of monitors that are all inter-connected. It would be no fun to start that process over.
If the diode in the alternator has failed and is feeding battery to ground there will be a large draw which will produce a fat blue spark and a loud crack. This is a serious short. Battery dies in about 5 to 10 hours.
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Art
2000 Taurus SEL Wagon 3.0 Vulcan (daily driver)
1993 Taurus GL Wagon 3.8 Essex
1991 Mercury Grand Marquis LS 5.0
1986 Chevrolet 3/4 ton pickup 4x4 350 with turbo400 and 208 transfer case
1978 Chevrolet 3/4 ton pickup 4x4 custom 6.2 na diesel with turbo400 and 203 transfer case
Planning 2008 Taurus X in a year
Last edited by mark v; 01-10-2008 at 09:27 AM.
Reason: Removed non useful text to keep the sticky flowing
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